1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processing of pellet-shaped articles, for example, pharmaceuticals such as caplets and tablets. In particular, the present invention relates to methods and systems for inspecting and/or identifying pharmaceutical articles.
2. Description of Related Art
Inspection of pellet-shaped articles is known in the art. Inspection units are typically configured to inspect and remove pellet-shaped articles from a conveyer mechanism that have been improperly processed in a previous processing operation. Previous processing operations may include marking the pellet-shaped articles with printing indicia, coloring the pellet-shaped articles, laser drilling holes in the pellet-shaped articles, and/or gel-coating the pellet-shaped articles. These processing operations are typically completed upstream from the inspection unit such that the inspection unit may inspect if these processes have been properly completed.
One concern among manufacturers is to ensure that the composition of the pellet-shaped articles remains consistent. For example, the introduction of foreign substances into one or more of the pellet-shaped articles that may cause harm to the patient.
In another example, a variety of known devices have been developed for applying a gel coating to pellet-shaped articles. Typically, the pellet-shaped articles, e.g., tablets, capsules, caplets and pills, are coated by having one side of the pellet-shaped article coated at a time. Often, due to a processing error, one or both sides of the pellet-shaped article are not coated at all, or one side of the pellet-shaped article is coated twice. As a result, the pellet-shaped article has at least one side that is not properly coated with gel. It is important for the manufacturer to carefully inspect the pellet-shaped articles for defects, such as an improperly coated side of the article, before the pellet-shaped article is distributed to the consumer so as to ensure the quality of the product and hence protect the safety of the consumer. An example of an inspection unit is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,510.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,894,801 to Ackley, Jr., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes a method and apparatus for conveying a plurality of pellet-shaped articles, such as pharmaceuticals. The conveyer conveys the pharmaceuticals past one or more article modifying devices, such as a laser that forms in the pharmaceuticals drilled or blind bore holes that act as a mechanical time-release mechanism. Lasers are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,376,771, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Furthermore, the tracking and/or identification of pharmaceutical articles is typically carried out by use of bar coding, etc., which is provided on packaging for the article. For example, blister packaging often includes a bar code that is provided to the outer foil layer of the blister packaging. While bar coding is useful, it is open to error, e.g., the wrong article could potentially inserted into to wrong blister package, in which case the blister package would not carry the correct information. Moreover, once the article is removed from the blister package, the bar coding on the package may become meaningless especially in an environment, e.g., hospitals, pharmacies, etc., where multiple articles with different medicines are being handled or dispensed.
Accordingly, a need has developed in the art to provide one or more inspection/identification systems to address the concerns described above.